Cream together the shortening and sugar, add egg, and mix until blended. Stir in bananas and sourdough starter. Add orange rind or vanilla. Sift flour, measure again with salt, baking powder, and soda. Add flour mixture and walnuts to the first mixture, stirring just until blended. Pour into greased 9x5" loaf pan. Bake in moderate or 350� oven for 1 hour or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool before slicing.

Hint: I used 1/2 cup cooking/baking Splenda for regular sugar. Came out beautifully.

I keep a very dry starter, so I used this recipe as my base and tweeked it a little. Because my starter is dry, I knew I needed more liquid in the bread. So, I added 1/2 cup buttermilk and switched butter for shortneing. Also, I substituted 1 cup wheat flour for 1 of the cups of white flour. Although this bread didnt have much in the way of overwhelming sourdough flavor, it was moist, light and it had great banana flavor - a great way to use starter (instead of throwing it out) when you are doing your refresh. I would make this again and again!!

I built up my starter at 100% hydration for pancakes for Sunday morning, only to find that my son had developed the 'flu and had no interest in food. With the whole household now succumbed to the horrid bug, I just left it in the fridge, figuring it would probably end up on the compost next week sometime.

Today, however, I arose from the not-dead-yet, and thought I'd give something else a try.

This is a fantastic banana bread! I used 1/2 cup of honey instead of the sugar, coconut oil instead of shortening, and subbed 1 of the cups of bread flour with whole wheat. It is the best I've ever made; light, moist, banana-y, just all around tops!

I have been trying to find tons of usage for my starter that I just don't want to "discard" or "throw away". That's like throwing the baby out with the bathwater! I can't wait to try this! Thanks for posting! I am expecting from the reviews that it will be GREAT!

I've been using starter for 15 years and never tried to make banana nut bread with it because I didn't like banana nut bread. This is now *my* banana nut bread recipe. I baked it for 50 minutes in a heavy glass loaf dish and let it sit on the stove for the remaining 10 minutes before turning it out on a rack. Also didn't mash the bananas, just broke them up and left them in soft lumps. The result was crunchy on the outside and wonderfully moist on the inside!

This is a lovely loaf and all but 2 of 12 loaves I've baked recently have gone to charity. I included quinoa in many to increase the loave's nutritional value. A nice improvement which added further sweet nuttiness to this lovely recipe. The chia seeds though were not necessarily a success with the resulting loaf being too 'gluggy'. Ok toasted but I wouldn't experiment with chia seeds in such a moist recipe again.

Heaven to have that lovely heart beating away in the fridge again!

Thanks to individuals for their help and encouragement.

Thanks to Buddye for this lovely recipe which will reside with me permantly. It's been a great success!

I've just had a thought. I wonder how well a little olive oil and some crushed pineapple would possibly improve this loaf even more.

Hummingbird style.

It wouldn't be possible to include too much pineapple as the loaf may become too dense. Or maybe that wouldn't be such an issue. Maybe dense is OK but gluggy isn't. (thinking-out-loud). Some chopped glace ginger included?

Thanks for sharing. I thought this was really awesome bread - with some modification. I swapped the shortening for butter (will try oil next), and added 1/2 cup more banana. The original in my opinion was good but needed more banana taste and a bit too crumbly. A little honey (decrease sugar) help to round out the taste. This is now my favorite banana bread recipe.

I make banana bread a lot, but never with sourdough. I am going to have to try this out. I think I will substitute cinnamon for the vanilla/orange, or maybe I will just add some cinnamon to it because I love cinnamon in my banana bread.

I needed to use up some bananas and sourdough starter, so I gave this a try - as muffins! They rose beautifully and had a good texture. I used white whole wheat flour, coconut oil for the shortening, and sprinkled cinnamon-dusted walnuts & pumpkin seeds on the top. This is a versatile recipe that I will use again.

I substituted unsalted butter for the shortening, used lemon zest instead of orange, reduced sugar to 3/4 cup, and I added a cup of fresh blueberries. I also needed a few tablespoons of water to get the right consistency. Best banana(blueberry) bread ever!

I made this recipe tonight and half the loaf is gone. Good job! thanks for posting the recipe. Maybe next time, I try 1.5 cups sourdough and 1.5 cups AP flour for more sour. Don't get me wrong this is a good recipe! Thanks.

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